1 Bowl Vegan Sugar Cookies

I’m not a negative person, but I do often expect the worst in order to safeguard myself from less than ideal outcomes.

For example, say we’re planning to hang out with friends. I think, “This may go terribly wrong. I’ll say something stupid. I’ll spill wine on their couch. There will be lots of awkward silence. They’ll never invite us over again.”

That way, if the evening goes at all OK, it was way better than I expected! Success! It’s like some twisted way of guaranteeing a “successful outcome” in any circumstance. Aren’t I smart? (Cheeky grin.)

Does anyone else do this? Because it kind of makes me feel like some bizarre form of a control freak and I need some more people in this boat with me. Either that or send 18 dozen of these sugar cookies to help me cope, STAT.

While I’m not able to predict many (read: any) things that will happen in life, I can predict this: Make these cookies and you will fall in love.

They are the classic, quintessential sugar cookie all veganized and tender and perfect, just dying to be frosted and brought to all of your holiday gatherings. Your friends and family will forget all about the gifts and nose dive into these bad boys, guaranteed.

These cookies are simple, as always. Just 1 bowl and no fancy methods or equipment required. Just good old fashioned cookies at your fingertips in less than 1 hour.

And when it comes time to frost, get festive – naturally!

I tried my hand at DIY natural food coloring using beet juice and it worked beautifully! Look at that hot pink like WHOA.

I also tried parsley for “green” but it was less successful. Has anyone else tried beets or other foods for dying? Do share, I’d love to know.

As far as the cookies go, you can cut them into shapes or just roll them into balls that bake into perfect, beautiful, fluffy discs. I want them all.

The shapes are a little more time intensive, but definitely worth it if you really want to get into the holiday spirit. But let’s be real, when it comes time to pick which cookie(s) to eat, we choose based on size and amount of frosting (the more of both, the better).

You’re going to LOVE these cookies. They’re:

Perfectly tender
Simple to make
Not too sweet
Vanilla-infused
Amazing with frosting
And undetectably vegan

These cookies are definitely my new go-to for holiday gifting.

What are your favorite cookies to bake during the holidays? Growing up, I tried many different kinds, but always came back to the classic sugar cookie as my favorite. You really can’t go wrong.

Friends, if you try this recipe, show us! Take a picture and tag it #minimalistbaker on Instagram (or your preferred social media). We’d love to see what you come up with. Cheers and happy baking!

Set your sifter over something that will catch fall out and add dry ingredients (flour, cornstarch, salt, baking soda and baking powder). Use a spoon to briefly stir, then sift over butter and sugar mixture.

Mix until until incorporated, being careful not to over mix. Then add almond milk and mix until a soft dough is formed. Switch to a wooden spoon if it gets too thick. If it appears to wet, mix in a bit more flour.

Cover and freeze dough for 15 minutes, or refrigerate for 30-45 minutes (up to overnight).

Five minutes before baking, preheat your oven to 350 degrees F and position a rack in the center of the oven.

Scoop out heaping 1 Tbsp amounts of chilled dough and roll into balls. Alternatively, roll out between two pieces of wax paper, lightly flouring the bottom layer, remove top layer, and cut out shapes. (NOTE: For shapes, to ensure they keep their form while baking, freeze them on the baking sheet for 10 minutes before baking.)

Arrange cookies on a clean baking sheet 2 inches apart to allow for spreading. If you’ve rolled the dough into balls, dip a glass into cane sugar and gently smash down into a disc to help them cook more evenly.

Bake on the center rack for 10-12 minutes for (8-10 for cutout shapes), or very slightly golden brown.

Remove from oven and let rest on pan for a few minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely. Prepare frosting in the meantime.

Add powdered sugar 1/2 cup at a time and continue mixing until thick and creamy. Drizzle in a little non-dairy milk to thin. You want this frosting to be pretty thick so it will hold its shape once on the cookies, so only add a little milk and add more powdered sugar if it gets too thin.

To add natural food coloring, finely grate a raw beet into a clean dish towel and then squeeze it over the frosting and whisk.

Once cooled, frost cookies and top with sprinkles (optional - vegan ones can be difficult to find). Store leftovers covered at room temperature for up to a few days. Freeze for longer-term storage (up to several weeks).

Notes

*Vegan butter sticks are best for baking, as the tubs often contain water to make them spreadable, which can affect the final product. I prefer Earth Balance buttery sticks for baking.*To speed soften your butter, simply cut it into thin slices from the stick and it will soften much quicker.*Loosely adapted from my Vegan Funfetti Cupcakes and Vegan Pumpkin Sugar Cookies.*I have a hunch you could also use other purees, such as butternut squash, beet and banana. If you try it out, let me know! I think it would create fun color/flavor variations.*For alternative frosting options, try my macadamia-coconut frosting, or cashew frosting! Adjust with whatever spices/flavors you prefer. Just try and keep it on the thicker side for icing.*I haven’t tried this recipe GF, but I do have a GF sugar cookie recipe that isn’t vegan. If you DO try this GF, let me know in the comments, including what blend you used!

I totally feel you on the lowest-expectations-possible-to-not-get-disappointed-thing. I used to do that with my grades. If the outcome is out of my control I try to let go of it (easier said than done). If it is within my control I will commit to being in the moment and open about my journey. Also easier said than done, but we will always have sugar cookies to the rescue :D

These look amazing! Could I use pumpkin butter instead of pumpkin puree? Or would the flavor be too strong? I can’t wait to make these! ! I recently made the pumpkin sugar cookies and my husband said they were the best cookies I’ve ever made!

The funny thing is I still consider myself a positive person! But I am trying to be better about not manipulating outcomes in any circumstance. I hate to admit it, but I still like control even if I’d rather be spontaneous and more “go with the flow”!

Dana, I bet the people who invite you over don’t expect low expectations of you or John… They probably think lets invite over Minimalist baker and join energies a have a kick ass night. Hope that came out right, it is a positive comment. –And the dye you made here, I have a idea, you make beets chips, right? You have that posted here somewhere Ive seen it. Dry out the beet chips(no flavor) a little more and grind it into powder. Beet powder dye. You probably already know that. Have a good day! :) Commune Approved.

Ahh! These look wonderful :) I can’t wait to try them. I’ll be subbing the flour for a gluten free version.
I am the exact same way about expecting the worst sometimes. It was like you were speaking from my brain! Love your site.

Expecting the worst to avoid disappointment is SO normal. A lot of people behave that way. Unfortunately this means you are not as uniquely clever as you thought, but on the plus side it means you are not alone and you are not a bizarre control freak. :D

Love all your one-bowl recipes. I think I’ll make these with my daughter this weekend. I’ve also used tumeric as a natural food dye. I wonder if matcha green tea would work for green? Maybe we’ll do a frosting experiment. :)

I just made these today, and they turned out really well! I used applesauce, rather than pumpkin, and Earth Balance straight from the tub, rather than sticks, and was very pleased with the results. Thanks for an awesome, relatively easy cookie recipe that my non-vegan family enjoyed.

Oh my goodness, I’m exactly the same! I always assume everything will go as badly as possible, so I won’t be disappointed. Just like I always asssumed I’d fail every class at university (but didn’t!!).
And these cookies look and sound amazing :)

Sugar cookie crisis averted! I made these with bobs red mill GF Flour, substituted cane sugar for coconut sugar, used a combo of palm oil shortening & coconut butter instead of vegan butter sticks (it’s 11pm and the store is closed so I’m using what’s around) and I ran out of GF flour so I used 1/2 cup of almond flour. They are freakin delicious!!
Thank you for this amazing recipe! -Ariel

Traditionally my family has always made Scottish shortbread for our Christmas cookies, with a few festive sprinkles on top. However, I do love frosting so these cookies might be a substitute this year :)

Your cookies are art! I have used spinach to naturally food color frosting and dairy-free grasshopper pies. You can’t even taste it, and you are instantly making your food healthier. Gotta love that! Thanks for all of your beautiful posts!

I just tried this recipe with banana puree and it worked out great! I didn’t have much luck with the frosting, because I don’t have any sugar in hand and tried it with muscovado. Obviously I didn’t get the texture, but the flavor is still too sweet for my taste. I’ll have to try the cashew frosting next time :)

Great cookies, I sprinkled mine with cinnamon and sugar. Do you have a cutout cookie recipe using almond flour that you would be willing to share. I want to make cutout cookies with my 1 year old (first) grand daughter. Trying to keep her diet healthy and minimalist! I don’t always have access to a computer, but when I do, your sight is the first I go to. Love the recipes. Thank you

After searching several vegan sugar cookie recipes, I came back and tried this one. So I can answer my own question: rolling into balls weighing 0.7 oz each, I got 23 cookies out of this recipe. I probably could have gotten one or two more out of it, but, hey, you know: it’s cookie dough. That stuff doesn’t eat itself.

Goodness lady do these look amazing. Sooooo wishing I wasn’t sick so I could make a batch. These drool worthy photos will have to do for now. And you can spill wine on my couch anytime, I’ll invite you back, promise ;)

Thank you very much for this recipe! supper yummy and I got to use my new Christmas cookie cutters. I once used the juice from raspberries to make my pink icing, its quite sweet but the colour was lovely – no need for those horrible artificial colours!

I would like to try this recipe. I did just make some vegan sugar cookies (for my three year old’s preschool class) and used natural food dyes for the frosting. I used powdered fruits and veggies I got off amazon.com. I used spinach powder for green, beet powder for red, carrot powder for orange/yellow, cocoa powder for brown, and blueberry powder for purplish blue. My favorite flavor was the blueberry! So yummy! :)

I made these cookies these morning, and they were unbelievably delicious! Everyone in my family loves them, and I’m planning to bake another batch tomorrow to give away to friends.

I did make some slight adjustments – I used virgin coconut oil instead of vegan butter, replaced half the all-purpose flour with whole wheat flour to give it an extra nutrition boost, organic coconut sugar instead of white/brown sugar, and used an egg instead of pumpkin puree. Although there was definitely a coconut flavour, it wasn’t overwhelming and the texture was still wonderful. I actually made around 35 smaller gingerbread-man-cutout cookies instead of 20.

Thank you so so much for this recipe! It’s definitely going to be a classic Christmas cookie recipe in my family from now on.

Thank you for your wonderful recipes. I’ve made several things from your site and they’ve all been so good! Makes baking for my kiddos with food allergies so much tastier than before. I feel like these recipes are giving the term “vegan” baking a whole new standard, especially in my little circle.

These are excellent cookies! I followed the recipe exactly for cut-out shape cookies and they came out perfectly. I was a little worried when I read about them spreading out, but mine didn’t seem to do that. Possibly because I chilled my dough for about 14 hours in the fridge and I chilled the cookie shapes in the freezer for 10 minutes as directed. Thank you for the great recipe!

These are perfect vegan sugar cookies! I followed the recipe exactly and baked cut out shapes for 8 minutes. When I first removed them from the cookie sheet and onto the cooling rack, I though they were going to be on the crunchy side (I live at high altitude so I always assume when they don’t turn out as expected, it’s due to that), however once cooled and frosted, they were exactly as I had hoped! Soft and chewy. Five stars all the way! A heads up to the vegans out there, make sure your sprinkles/decorating sugar doesn’t contain confectioners glaze!

This recipe turned out great. Used it to make cut outs for Santa for the kids to decorate…I live at high altitude and was not expecting good results but they actually came out perfect! Great texture, taste, AND they held their shape. Best vegan sugar cookie recipe I have tried by far!

I made these for Christmas with a couple tweaks and they were FANTASTIC. I still have a few left (5 days later) and they are moist as ever.

I really wanted an orange iced cookie, so I did 4 T of OJ instead of milk, and used applesauce in place of pumpkin. I also ad a GF eater coming to dinner, so I made with Oat flour instead. Those changes ended up making the batter pretty wet, so I did end up using about an extra cup of flour than instructed.

I love love love your recipes and I’m vegan and pregnant, being pregnant and vegan, I somehow recently became allergic to pumpkin. This is a tragedy in itself because I LOVE PUMPKIN… So i guess you can say i hope it doesn’t last. Now when i bake i normally use a tablespoon of applesauce for every egg needed but i only used it for cake and brownies. (brownies i actually use 1 1/2 tablespoon of applesauce, makes it super duper fudge-licous) so anyway would apple sauce be good for cookies?? If not what would your prefer other than pumpkin.

My family has a tradition to make sugar cookies for Christmas and when I went gluten- and dairy-free I thought it was over for me. Especially since I’ve failed at other GF cookie recipes. But not these! Wow they were amazing and I can’t tell you how happy I was to have this recipe. My family said they were even better than the traditional recipe!!!

These look and sound amazing. I wish I had seen these before Christmas. I love making sugar cookies during the holidays, but am vegan now for nearly a year and didn’t have a recipe, so I skipped the cookies. I will be trying these real soon! Thanks for the recipe.

These cookies were amazing! I made these for my daughter’s class and everyone loved it. My daughter has egg and milk allergies so I wanted to give this a try. I used mashed sweet potato instead if pumpkin puree and it turned out great. Excellent recipe! Thanks for sharing.

I have these in the oven right now. The dough was delicious and easy to work with. I got 20-3 inch pumpkin shaped cookies. I made a quick pumpkin frosting for them since I needed orange frosting. Just powdered sugar, pumpkin purée, and vanilla. Such a fun Halloween cookie! My little boys had great fun cutting them out. This is my first experience with vegan sugar cookies. We just found out about milk and egg allergies at our house, and I was grateful to find your blog!

Just made these for Halloween in the shape of a finger with an almond for fingernail. Decided to experiment with beet juice to make blood and they came out very successful and yummy. Boiled the beet juice with some sugar until it started thickening. Looks just like real blood :)

I just made these last night and they were so yummy! My 7 YO son and husband both loved them. They taste like the round fluffy sugar cookies that you get at the store with the bright inch of fluffy icing on top! We will definitely make these for christmas and I will try it with GF flour too! Thank you for the awesome recipe!!! My son has officially eaten pumpkin now;)!

Great recipe!!! I HAD to make it the minute I read it!! I didn’t have pumpkin or almond milk. So I used a Chia seed substitute (1 tbsp ground chia seed 3 tbsp water, let sit for 15 min.) and used lemon juice with some zest for the almond milk!! amazing!! Thank you so much!! (I didn’t make the icing)

These are excellent!! My non-vegan, non- gluten free friends even commented on how great they were! So that’s saying something!!! I made these gluten free using the Robin Hood pre-mixed flour blend. I also didn’t have pumpkin purée so I put some chopped apple and water in the microwave and made my own applesauce. I used melted chocolate in a ziplock with a little hole to decorate these and put them in the fridge to set the chocolate. So gooood!!

We made these last night and they are PERFECT!! I am not an accomplished baker, and even I was able to pull this off. My (non-vegan) cutouts are usually brittle and dry and the icing is usually too sweet. THESE cookies are fluffy and delicious, and the icing is AMAZING! My very skeptical hubby still has no clue they are vegan and this recipe will be my go to from now on. THANK YOU DANA!!

I’m really in the Christmas Spirit at this time and I want to make these tonight for a bake sale this week because of how A-MAZE-ING they look! You said you’d prefer/use the Earth Balance butter sticks, but is it OK if I use the tub of it because that’s all I have *sigh*

Just got finishes mixing all the ingredient’s together! waiting for it in the freezer right now! But just a question. My dough is um well, orange and I’m wondering if its supposed to be that color since in your pictures they are not. I think it may be the pumpkin, but did I do something wrong? and also before I put it in the freezer the dough was pretty liquidy, well not liquidy but more like gooey-ish, lets just say not a dough you want to roll out at the moment unless your in the mood for a mess! so is it going to harden into a dough after in the freezer for some time? if not should I add something such as more flour? As you can already see, I’m not the best… baker-that’s for sure! well when it comes to your recipes its simple as that! but I’m new at the whole “baking” thing..

Welp! that’s all I wanted to know! but thanks so much for the amazing-FABULISTIC recipes! There definitely a winner! Love you and your recipes! Definitely an inspiration that’s for sure! :)

Hi,
I just made these for my daughter’s preschool Christmas party. They taste great! I have yet to frost them. I made them gluten-free and with apple sauce and subbed most of the sugar with coconut sugar and they are delicious.
Thanks for sharing the recipe!

I raised my kids vegan and we rarely get to bake sweets, but since its around the holidays I figured Id look for a great vegan cookie recipe. When I found this I was like WHOA I needed to try this! and when I made these it was a success! My kids love them!! Thanks so soo much for this recipe Dana, they were absolutely AMAZING!! :)

I made these about 2 weeks ago and they are fantastic. I have some leftover dough in the fridge – how long do you think it lasts in the fridge? I’ve kept regular cookie dough in the fridge for a couple weeks. I imagine it’s fine, but wondering if you have a recommendation?

I wish I could post a pic- I infused caffeine free blue berry tea to give my frosting a nice pink color. The flavor was a little sting of blueberry so I added vanilla extract and the more powdered sugar I added the better it tasted. The final outcome Was absolutely perfectly fluffy and lovely. Thanks for the recipe!!

Thank you so much for this easy & delicious recipe! My son’s preschool class was decorating (non-vegan) cookies for Christmas, and I made these to send a few with him to ensure he’d have something to decorate too. He loved them and so do my husband and I! So yummy and like you said, undetectably vegan ;)
Thanks again!

Christmas!!!! Yay! This year my mum is letting me make the cookies, it is a tradition for our family to decorate cookies EVERY YEAR. She is skeptical about this “vegan” nonsense. Although I am not vegan, I wanted a alternative to the one with eggs. (Cousins are allergic) May I use the tub EB? I really want it to work, as we are snowed in and it’s very hard to hit the shops. :(

Hi! I’m not around my normal grocery store at the moment and the one I went to didn’t have Earth Balance buttery sticks, only the tub (like spreadable ‘butter’). Do I need to make any changes to the recipe if I use that instead?

I made these with Namaste gluten free flour. (left out the arrowroot powder given the flour blend already contained it.) I also used a 1/4 of a tub of the soy free earth balance. I had to add a little more flour at the end. These came out great! SO HAPPY!! My son is GF, dairy free, soy free and dye free. These are so yummy! Thank you!

We made these with 1 c rice flour, 1/4 c tapioca starch, 1/2 c oat flour, and 1/2 tsp xanthan gum. We alos used shortening in place of the Earth Balance sticks. A bit crumbly, but they definitely worked! My kids were thrilled. Thank you!

I made these for a family Christmas party today. I have family members who are “scared” of the vegan food I bring. These were a GIANT hit. Everyone loved them – especially the kids! Thank you for an awesome and easy recipe!

These were so so good! My son is vegan and I made them for him for Christmas. I couldn’t even take a picture of them, he ate them all even before Santa came :) I am making them again so maybe I will just do hearts or something ha ha. Thanks for the great recipe!

These are wonderful! I rolled them smaller, a teaspoon size, flattened them but left them about a half inch thick, baked 10 minutes, and they came out nice and soft. The best taste and consistency of any vegan cookie I’ve made. I even used the tub margarine without a problem. Thanks!

This recipe turned out great! I used it to make a vegan dessert “pizza” with a sugar cookie crust, and this made the perfect amount of dough for it! Great taste and texture, too. Definitely saving this recipe.

No they tasted like sugar cookies had no clue about the pumpkin. I also used banana in my frosting and that you fould taste ans they were great. This is first time i have ever made anything vegan and i looked than more than the non.

I’ve made these twice now, and they are amazing! At least as good as any other traditional sugar cookies I’ve ever made. They can be made soft or crispy by rolling the dough thicker or thinner. I used 1 tsp of vanilla and 1/2 tsp almond extract in the frosting. You’d never know they are vegan! The pumpkin is not detected in the taste, but does give them more of a brownish tint.

I have used freeze dried berries to color and flavor my frosting before. Buy a bag of freeze dried strawberries (I get mine at Trader Joe’s), then turn them into powder in the blender (I use my NutriBullet) and mix in the frosting. When doing this you may need to add a little milk because the frosting tends to get thicker. But it is very delicious and makes a pretty pink color.

Best vegan sugar cookie! crunchy, not too sweet, everybody thinks a professional baker made them! I made mine into the shape of a ju jitsu gi for my ju jitsu class and everybody loved them! I didnt make the frosting that this recipe had though I just used a glaze I made from powdered sugar and coconut milk.

Spinach works far better than parsley for green food dye and has less of a taste. I’ve done a lot with colored oils in the past. Carrots can be used for orange, beets or cherries for red, blueberries for blue, turmeric or yellow peppers/beets for yellow. Red peppers also give off their color pretty well. Pick your liquid of choice, pack in the veggie/fruit, boil for 5 minutes to half a hour (depending on what you’re using), let sit overnight and then strain. Oil tends to transfer colors better than milks or water plus can be stored for later. I’ve used the oils before to make mashed potatoes and it’s a fantastic vegan way to do it, especially with the sweet pepper oils as they tend to impart a sweet taste.

I made these exactly as instructed, only substituting Namaste Foods gluten free organic perfect flour blend. They turned out great. I didn’t cut them out into shapes, but instead flattened them into disks with a sugared glass. Thanks for another great recipe Dana!

I’d love to make these for wedding favours at my vegan wedding, but how would they taste if I didn’t put icing on them? (If I’m going to put them in treat bags for guests to take home I wouldn’t want the icing to run or break up.) If they don’t taste great without the icing I might opt for a different recipe…If I ended up making them I’d include the recipe and a link to your page :)

This must be old because I’ve never seen you write about your feelings like this but we are definitely awkward soul mates. My ex boyfriend’s mother used to make him candy canes when he was a child because he couldn’t have preservatives and she painted the stripes on with beet juice. I can’t wait to try this recipe this weekend.

Turned out great! These would make amazing snickerdoodles, just sprinkle cinnamon sugar on instead of frosting. I did 9 minutes on the shapes, and they were classically chewy. Next time I’ll do at least 11 minutes cause I like them crispy. And this is the 1st time I’ve made frosting that actually set! It kept it’s shape and looked so professional. And I kept the dough in the fridge 24 hours before I could get to it and it was fine/didn’t crumble.

I made these last year and they were so so good! My family said they liked these better than the non-vegan sugar cookies they were making :) however, in the last year I have had to become GF, would gluten free all purpose flour work the same? Thank you!

Hi Dana! I absolutely love your recipes, but I have a hard time with pumpkin substitutes. My hubby isn’t a fan, and I desperately want to make these cookies, but using either the Follow Your Heart egg substitute, or the Bob’s Red Mill egg substitute. Do you know how many eggs the pumpkin was to replace? 2? I want to try it, but don’t want to over or under egg… Thanks!!! Jess

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Hi, I'm Dana! I create simple, delicious recipes that require 10 ingredients or less, one bowl, or 30 minutes or less to prepare.